in no of her wav. and which are necessary to the general welfare. 

 Forest rv is not a new thing. It \vas discussed two thousand years 

 jiii'o. ,-ind it has been studied and applied with increasing thorough- 



The principles of forestry are everywhere the same. They rest on 

 natural laws, which are at work everywhere and all the time. It is 

 simply a question of how best to apply these laws to fit local needs and 

 conditions. No matter how widely countries may differ in si/e. 

 climate, population, industry, or government, provided only they 

 have forests, all of them must come to forestry some time as a matter 

 of necessity. 



The countries of Furope and Asia, taken together, have passed 

 throiiu'h all the stages of forest history, and applied all the known 

 principles of forestry. They are rich in forest experience. The 

 lessons of forestry wore brought home to them by hard knocks. Their 

 forest systems wore built up gradually as the result of hardships. 

 Thev did not first spin line theories and then apply those theories by 

 main force. On the contrary, they began bv facing disagreeable facts. 

 Fvery step of the way toward wise forest use. the world over, has 

 been made at the sharp spur of want, suffering, or loss. As a result. 

 the science of forestry is one of the most practical and most directly 

 useful of ;ill the sciences. It is a serious work, undertaken as a 

 measure of relief, and continued as a safeguard against future 



Roughly, those countries which today manage their forests on sound 

 principles have passed through four stages of forest experience. At 

 first the forests were so abundant as to be in the way. and so they 

 were either neglected or destroyed. Next, as settlements grew and the 

 borders of the forest receded farther and farther from the places 

 where wood was needed and used, the question of local wood supplies 

 had to be faced, and the forest was spared or even protected. Third. 

 the increasing need of wood, together with better knowledge of the 

 forest and its growth, led to the recognition of the forest as a crop, 

 like agricultural crops, which must be harvested and which should 

 therefore be made to grow again. In this stage silviculture, or the 

 management of the forest so as to encourage its continued best growth, 

 was born. Finally, as natural and industrial progress led to measures 

 for the general welfare, including a wiser and less wasteful use of 

 natural resources, the forest was safeguarded and controlled so as to 

 yield a constant maximum product year after year and from one u'en- 

 eration to another. Systematic forest rv. therefore, applied by the 

 nation for the benefit of the people, and practiced increasingly by far- 

 sighted private citizens, comes when the last lesson in the school of 



forest experience is mastered. 



f'hina holds a unique position as the onlv civili/ed countrv which 

 has persistently destroyed its forests. What forestry has done in other 

 countries stands out in bold relic)' au'ainst the background of ( nina, 

 whose hills have been largely stripped clean of all vegetation, and 



